


beneath my skin

by Larrant



Series: i'll ask for the sea [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Dark, Gen, Mild Gore, Minor Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-13 00:13:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5687098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larrant/pseuds/Larrant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The script on his skin is smooth to the touch, slightly raised above his flesh in its inky black shade, and Ben likes running his fingers down the ramrod straight lines of Aurebesh when he's alone at night, lying on his bed and tucked safely under the warm sheets.</i><br/>a prelude</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gore_Slash_Are_My_Favorite_Things](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gore_Slash_Are_My_Favorite_Things/gifts).



> hi there the only thing i can take pride in is that i was in the kylux trash heap from the very beginning.  
> enjoy my shitty writing, and if you leave a comment/kudos/bookmark/subscription behind, i will be very much indebted to you! @.@
> 
> so my draft for this is 9k already in its entirety, and i decided to divide it up into several chapters for the sake of better quality when editing and posting :)!

 

 

The script on his skin is smooth to the touch, slightly raised above his flesh in its inky black shade, and Ben likes running his fingers down the ramrod straight lines of Aurebesh when he's alone at night, lying on his bed and tucked safely under the warm sheets.

 

In the near darkness he can't see the mark for himself unless he looks in a mirror, but he can decipher the letters just from the raised bumps they make on his skin; they're written above his collarbone, neatly ascribed from what is almost the base of his neck down to his shoulder. It's at least fairly convenient for a soulmark location- he knows a girl who has her mark written in a sloping line across her cheek, somewhere that was nigh impossible to hide and utterly awkward when it came up in conversations.

 

 _Besh_. _Resh_. _Esk_.

 

He traces the letters with slim fingers that have long since memorized the pattern of lines, and under the covers he murmurs to himself an elusive name that he has never heard of nor seen before- but the name of someone that he'll without a doubt one day meet.

 

He has time enough to wait, so he's not impatient for that day, though he certainly hopes it comes before he's an old man.

 

(not that he thinks that way exactly- he cannot imagine ever growing old nor even becoming an adult, not right now as he is)

 

And certainly, to a child like himself the soulmark he bears is more a concept than anything- something not quite real, more out of fiction and imagination rather than something made from flesh and blood, but whenever he feels particularly alone, his fingers will always return to habitually drag across the familiar pattern; a form of comfort that reminds him of the person he's fated to be with. It's not something he thinks about, just something he does unconsciously, something like a routine to him.

 

Whenever he's particularly bored or he has insomnia- or when its Summer and his curfew is at 10 but the sun stays in the sky until maybe 12 (and who can sleep when it's still light outside anyway)- he wonders what they look like too, unable to sleep and thoughts flying everywhere.

 

When he's not thinking about school or a new holo series that just came out, he idly wonders if his soulmate is human, or if they're humanoid _._  His mind, bored and not yet tired, goes to the colour of their skin, the number of limbs they might have and the languages they'll speak- the name can be from anywhere after all, a desert planet like Tatooine, an ice planet like Hoth or Ilum? Somewhere like Corellia, perhaps. Perhaps, he thinks as well, they are somebody on D'Qar itself, just somebody he hasn't met yet.

 

Even though he also thinks to himself that the syllables sound too traditional to be anything but human, that if he thinks on it more than he likes it's mostly Imperials who still use those kind of old naming conventions- and then he tries not to let the uncertainty creep in at that last thought.

 

Whoever it is, surely they'll be right for him.

 

Soulmates are things from the Maker after all, something only a part of the population are blessed to be born with- one in fifteen or twenty, and a mark on a newborn's skin was something of an omen: those with such marks were often destined for great or unique things. Even if Ben had no idea what would end up counting as 'great' for him.

 

But he's read the stories, he's seen his mother and father too, how they are around each other and the stories they still tell him- and so surely they are something like from those old tales he has read, only personified in the flesh.

 

He thinks that one day, he wants to have a romance like that as well.

 

Even if it does end up being someone unexpected. But he figures that probably is going to run in the family too.

 

(though he profusely hopes that his story differs from his parents at least a little- being frozen in carbonite is something he'll happily avoid, and getting stuck in a trash compactor with a tentacle creature does _not_ sound pleasant either- and he'd happily skip the whole near death experience thing if it's not necessary)

 

(his parents don't actually tell him about the whole 'metal bikini incident')

 

But contrary to the others with marks he knows, his soulmate never takes a particular firm shape or look to his imagination, or at least, nothing as specific as the descriptions he listens to. Generally he sticks to thinking that it's human and male (he searched up the name once on the holonet, and apparently it's a male name), but he's not even completely sure of that, so he tries to keep his imagination from wandering too far- because, well it could be a _jawa_ , for all he knows. Though he'd really hope it wasn't a jawa.

 

So while his friends have all come up with images of what their soulmates look like, as all 10 year olds are so wont to do, Ben is still mulling over the species.

 

(just not a jawa, please Maker and thank you)

 

(not an ewok either)

  

Even if his dad keeps on insisting that you never know, he's met a lot of Gamorreans over the years, and sheesh it sounds kinda like a Gamorrean name _don't you think so too mum_?

 

Leia threatens to hit him over the head with a pan.

 

The mark is meant to be a private thing of course- Ben wears scarves and shirts with high collars to protect it, to keep the mark from showing, but once out of curiousity he shows it to Poe anyway- like anyone might do to be honest, pulling down the collar of his shirt and proudly baring the stiff letters to his friend, waiting a little nervously for the response to come. Secrets are hard to keep.

 

The older boy blinks and grins at him in return, and with some sort of a flourish pulls back his long sleeves, sticks his hands out and shows Ben his arms with his palms face up and his wrists tilted towards the sun.

 

"One on each wrist," he tells Ben, like it's something confidential, and the smile he cracks is something infinitely softer than his usual smirks.

 

Ben finds himself awed as he stares at the words that line the boy's wrists, which are written right over his pulse in their messy scratches. He wants to touch them, almost, but he knows a lot better to ask to do that.

 

One soulmate is uncommon, its something that might indicate anything, something good or ill or just nothing at all. _Two soulmates_. It was... unique. One in a hundred, if even that- that's what he almost tells Poe, but then well Poe probably already knows, so he doesn't. He thinks vaguely that Revan, the Sith Malak, and the Jedi Exile, that they too were bonded in such a triad- that in all the tales there's always some great fate or destiny tying together those who are together in such a bond.

 

Poe grins, seeming to sense the admiration from his friend, and promises that Ben'll be the first one to meet them when the time comes.

 

(it turns out he will be, and it turns out he'll meet them before Poe ever does- just not exactly how you might expect it, to be honest.)

 

But Ben never does want for more than one mark. Not even now that he's seen Poe's marks- and they are so very different from his too, two sets of sort of messy scrawls that had looked rather wobbly and shaky on his wrists, like they were made by people who didn't quite know how to write or had never learned.

 

(an accurate description, not that he knows that)

 

Poe's marks are nothing like the firm strokes of a pen on his- and his are blacker too, like they've been printed on using fresh ink that has never been diluted or dulled, ink that's been replaced afresh every day. He remembers that Poe's had been softer, less dark, more like actual _pen_  rather than an inked tattoo.

 

(even if Poe's looked so much more personal than his did- that Ben's mark that in comparison seemed to be printed on, as mechanically and immaculately written as it was, unlike the clearly visible _handwriting_  on Poe's- but then he also notices later, something that he had not noticed before, there's also that tiny little flourish at the end of the 'l' on his that somehow makes the letter all the more human)

 

So he's just a little bit proud of that, his mark.

 

Privately, he also thinks that one is more than enough, that he doesn't know how he'd be able to love two people equally and put both first. His one will be enough. That's what he tells his mother when she tucks him into bed that night, and she smiles and kisses him goodnight.

 

He falls asleep for the first time in awhile to the musings inside his head, thinking that whoever his soulmate is, he will definitely love them.

 

And in the end, when he is sent away to train as a Jedi- when he leaves behind his mother and his father and his friends, the name above his collarbone is coincidentally also one of the only things he can keep. Everything else is left behind- he no longer needs it, and he's not going to stay in contact with anyone anyway. But it's not like he can leave _himself_ behind, and the mark is a part of him.

 

(Poe sees him off with a whoop and a shout over the humming of the engines that the next time they meet he'll be a pilot already)

 

(coincidentally, that turns out true too)

 

The night before he goes though, he dreams. It's the first and only dream he ever has of _that person_. At least, he thinks it is- because when he wakes up that morning, an image still stark in his mind of red hair and black that was all-consuming and yet comforting, he can think of nothing else, and that he knows somehow (illogically), that the person he saw **must** have been his soulmate. In fact, he's completely certain of it.

 

So that is the image that afterwards never departs from his imagination- gray eyes that had bordered on both blue and green, angled cheekbones and a high bridged nose and a glimpse of red hair that he tries to commit to memory despite having already half forgotten. It was a very specific sort of image, that is what he recalls too, though he cannot quite remember it at all afterwards.

 

He doesn't tell his parents about the dream, but he does tell Poe- because neither of them have found their soulmates yet, and Poe is his best friend after all, so he asks him if he's ever dreamt of anything like that. It's a little odd to talk about something like that of all things before leaving, but he doesn't want to think about his going away just yet- no matter how close it is.

 

The older boy shrugs at him, though his eyes look like they're thinking in deep, and eventually, he just says, "I dunno. But sometimes I dream about sand?"

 

Ben almost facepalms right there and then.

 

"Hey," Poe protests, flushing a little, "I'm being serious!"

 

But then they're both laughing anyway.

 

( _And afterwards;_

_"So hey, we'll still be friends right?"_

_"Yeah, sure we will. I thought we agreed to be infamous pirates of the Outer Rim when we grew up. How're we gonna do that in the future if we're not friends huh."_

_"C'mon, Poe."_

_"Hey I'm serious. Don't worry okay. We'll **always** be friends, got that? Doesn't matter if you come back from that Jedi training looking like a monk. I don't even care if you grow a footlong beard, okay, though I'll disinherit you if do that."_

_"Shut up."_

_He's still relieved_.)

 

It only actually occurs to him on the shuttle to that far distant planet that he has never wanted to be a Jedi.

 

The realization is something that he's always sort of known deep inside, so even though it's unexpected it doesn't especially take him by surprise- but it relieves him a little, suddenly recognizing and understanding that traitorous thought that had always pulled inside of him.

 

By then it's a little too late to go back, his bag is on the seat next to him so that he won't clutch at it, and he's looking out of the sealed window down to the planet beneath him. They've already left the atmosphere, and it looks so small underneath him, like he can grasp it with a hand if only he could reach out.

 

It's far, far too late to go back.

 

(he thinks about it relatively calmly, and it covers the fearful turbulence beneath the surface)

 

A part of him feels bitter at his parents for not understanding anything, and he realizes as well that he _resents_ them for not even hesitating before sending him away from them, immediately believing uncle Luke and thinking that it was best to have him leave. But it's not like he can do anything now, especially not when his mother had looked at him with such sad eyes before giving him a hug in farewell.

 

It just wouldn't be right.

 

So he hopes, a quiet, slow hope, that when he arrives, when time passes, it will all get better.

 

(well, hope is a fickle sort of thing)

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben arrives, and settles in.
> 
>  
> 
> _At one point someone catches him in the middle of crouching down and dangling his sidekick by the scruff of her neck over a pond. Somewhat against the point, the kid is giggling wildly at all the excitement._

 

 

 

The panels that separate the interior of the ship from the inky darkness beyond are thick and glossy, transparent to a fault. He taps them, and listens to the empty echo.

 

It’s debatable, what anyone does in space on a journey. You could stare into space and stare out forever, probably. There are always new things to see, a new star to spot and then a constellation to pick out, until your eyes hurt and you finally decided to give up. So that’s what Ben does from the safety of his bunk in the ship, but while his eyes track a distant star off in the reaches of what must be the Outer Rim, he can’t think of anything at all.

 

It’s a strange kind of numbness that has invaded him, numb enough that nothing seems quite real, like he’s awake inside a dream. A dream that won’t end.

 

On the other hand, it’s not exactly like this entire situation is anything new for him to get used to. He’s known he'd be leaving for awhile now, but he had never thought about it, had put it out of mind until today.

 

He’s cold too. Maybe it’s the cold of space, the chill lingering in the cracks and crevices, the metal that lines the walls. He feels cold all the way through, even though he’s not shivering. He wonders how long he’ll have to bear it- the hours of stillness are overlapping already as he waits for the inevitable to eventually arrive.

 

But after staring at the clock on a monitor for an hour, he realizes how slowly time is moving. However long this journey is going to be- it’s already going to be too long.

 

“Be optimistic,” he tells himself aloud, and the words bounce back at him from the walls, going quite unheard. He sighs, and leans back against his bunk.

 

Well, maybe this is all going to pass. He’ll arrive in his new life and then it’ll be busy enough he can just forget everything else. He won’t need to think about anything. Maybe, like Mother said, it’ll even be a good change for him.

 

Or perhaps, if he was just a bit luckier, this might not be happening at all.

 

The darkness outside never changes, neither do the thoughts dragging on in his empty skull. Time passes, and the silence fills any empty spaces inbetween.

 

To him, it feels like eternity. He sleeps, he wakes, he goes back to sleep. He plays sabacc against himself, he eats and then... he goes back to sleep. His mother calls at one point to check up on him, concerned and sleep-deprived (she’s just gotten back from a meeting, it must be 2 in the morning there and she’s calling him anyway)- he smiles at her with a brightness he doesn’t feel, and is glad for once she can’t sense the truth.

 

And then, however many cycles later- before he can fully comprehend it- they're there.

 

When he stands up, the light filtering in through the panels and into the dusty air, he can't even feel his mother or father any more. The Force no longer connects them, except by some vague thread he can’t consciously touch. There’s nothing coherent in the way of thought, not even when he tries and concentrates, tries to focus on his mother’s face, her voice. Perhaps they simply too far apart now, for anything to be felt.

 

It’s an odd thought, to be so apart even the Force cannot connect them to one another. He doesn't know what to think of that, really.

 

(he doesn't know if it's a good idea to think about it any more)

 

Ben wobbles a little on his feet, his knees aching after sitting down for so long, before he ducks down and grabbing his scarce belongings.

 

When he steps out of the shuttle down onto the grass, it is, ostensibly, to a bright, overbearing light. The satchel with what few belongings he has is slung over his shoulder, and he’s arrived.

 

Around him are plains and rivers and mountains, snow atop the highest peaks he can see- the picture of it almost blotted out by the sun. He takes a breath, to steady himself, except even the air is different, mountain air untainted by the smell of fuel or exhaust gas.

 

 _A new start,_ Ben thinks, not knowing if the thought is his own or his mother's.

 

(he doesn't like it)

 

A holocall every few weeks- at most- that's what Luke tells him right from the start when he lets go from the tight hug, apologetic but not regretful, says that it's for the best and Ben should dedicate himself to his training and this is the best way to do it. So Ben hesitates, and then he nods. Follows. It's the Jedi way, after all, and it’s not like his uncle’s been wrong before.

 

Even so, he wonders how long it will take for his parents to forget him.

 

When he gets to his new quarters, he looks around, at the dark stone wall, the cot in the corner. There’s a glass of flowers by the latticed window. Matter of fact after looking around, he thinks the locks on the doors might be the most advanced piece of technology he’s found on the planet.

 

It’s still light outside- there are two suns on this planet and hours of the day are far longer than back home. He’s tired though, and for him the light feels too bright, too benevolent. There are birds not that far off in the distance, he can hear them chattering in their trees.

 

His hands are still cold. The chill of space has seeped down into his bones. He’s not sure if it will leave.

 

Instead of thinking, he drops his satchel by the far corner, and falls asleep on the cot, relieved at the comfort of a bed that finally doesn’t feel like it’s constantly moving underneath him.

 

When he wakes up, the first thing he notices is the dark stone above him. It’s strange, and further away than what he’s used to seeing.

 

His first day goes about as well as one might expect. He keeps himself to himself, and that well, it seems to work. Ben doesn’t want to brag about it, or be ashamed about it, but he’s _different_. That’s what everyone, including him, knows right from the start.

 

He can feel it through the Force, the quiet unease below the surface- how much of it is caused by his _own_ simmering animosity is unknown (he’s not going to think about that one), but they avoid him as far as they can, interacting with him only so far as to be polite.

 

It's like a waiting game, he decides, after watching someone trip over themselves in the act of avoiding him. A waiting game to see who gives in first and initiates contact. When that happens, he knows he'll be accepted directly into the fold, but until then he’s waiting on the outskirts.

 

Most avoid him. So he avoids them too. He should care about that, about fitting in, but he finds that he utterly does not.

 

Maybe, Ben will consider a little later, it's a form of rebellion, trying not to fit in here (a pointless exercise really, but if it is then it's one he indulges in anyway). He doesn’t want to make friends. He’s not _here_ to make friends.

 

So he stays on his own, not really getting along or speaking with any of the others that train alongside him- even the leisure activities they partake of (mostly swimming in the nearby creek) he avoids, returning to his room as soon as he can, reading on his own, trying to train in solitude. The dull sense of emptiness inside him doesn’t change.

 

At the same time, maybe his self-imposed isolation is something that would have happened naturally anyway.

 

But then one night, two weeks and a half in, something- well, something changes. It’s nighttime, he’s returning to his room, and it’s not like anything has happened, it’s not like anything should happen- but something just. _Does_.

 

He’s locking the door behind him, intending on showering and then going to bed, but as soon as the door shuts, something gives way. The calm inside him shatters with nothing more than the click of a lock.

 

(he hasn’t felt anything yet, not for the past few weeks, he hasn’t _thought_ about anything, hasn’t cried or tried to or missed home- later in reflection, he’ll think maybe this was just to make up for all that unfeeling)

 

Something _cracks_ , and then like a tidal wave, everything else crumbles and gives way.

 

The holopad in his hand is falling with a clatter to the ground and he’s crumpling against the door, sinking to his knees and out of breath, inhaling as much as his lungs can take but it’s _not enough_.

 

The reality crashing down on him is weeks late, but it feels no less crushing.

 

There's a wetness making its way to his cheeks, and then before he can even comprehend it, the tears are falling without discrimination. He's curling up on the ground, fingers dragging desperately at his eyes to stop the damned tears from falling- _pathetic, pathetic,_ **_pathetic_**. This is the part where the sense of denial stops and Ben realizes that he's fourteen and he's left everything in his life behind for a place he doesn't know and doesn't want to be and that _this is it_.

 

The finality of everything sinks in, and he hates it.

  

Minutes pass, perhaps more, perhaps hours. The dusk of the sky above turns to darkness. But it's impossible to tell the time here- there are no skytowers lit in red and gold outside, there are no sounds of people walking metal streets to give an estimate of how far he is into the night- there's nothing but the damned _silence_ , the painful wind that rattles the rusted ledges, the trees howling in the distance. Nothing but emptiness for miles- for _parsecs_.

 

Somewhere inbetween the shaking and shallow gasps, his hands end up clawing desperately at the mark on his neck, digging deep into the flesh in an attempt to ground himself- and he's shoved two knuckles into his mouth to stop any noise from escaping his choked lips, even though he knows nobody will hear anyway.

 

It doesn't help. Not in the way he hopes it would. He doesn't even know why it hurts, but it _hurts so much_ and he hates it, so stupid. _So foolish_.

 

The thoughts stop nothing. He feels like a child again, an idiotic, stupid child. He knows from experience that this will pass, that everything passes, that he'll look back on this tomorrow and feel utterly disgusted with himself- he must be such an ugly sight right now, a pitiful display of something pointless and wasteful.

 

Right now the emotion is still raw at the edges, uncontainable, and he can't even think about controlling it.

 

_Why is he like this? So pathetic, so weak. Why is he still such a child?_

 

(but he’s fourteen, and he wonders why he won’t allow himself this weakness)

 

For that night, it's all Ben can do to tightly lock down on his mental barriers and stop any of the emotion from leaking out- he could release it into the Force, and it might make things better- he knows that's how the Jedi used to do it, how they stopped themselves from facing emotions they didn't want- but then it would be felt by the others, and he would do that, he would. He just does not want that kind of humiliation, the sensation of others feeling his pain too.

 

But it’s that night, somehow, that changes something in him. It’s not just a release of everything. Maybe it is, but maybe a seed is planted too. Something that whispers about resentment and anger and ‘ _I must be stronger',_  ‘I _won’t depend on anyone any more’_.

 

And yet, time is as time will, and the next day brings back the peace, brings back the calm as if nothing ever happened, and for Ben too it's almost like nothing ever happened, as if he hadn't just had a breakdown the night before and his heart was not still seized inside from it.

 

(still; somewhere in him, something has stayed)

 

But that… _change_ stays. It might have been the trigger of something, that lets in everything else. Night after night now- ever since that first time, from before he came here- he dreams of darkness, shadows that grip him tightly enough he loses himself it them and drowns. He never wakes- not even when he drowns in the sea of suffocating darkness- when he wakes up it is to daylight and the dreams are dried black on his skin, old and cracking and peeled away with the wind.

 

It’s funny. Not in a funny, laughing sort of way. Just. _Funny_. Ironic. The dreams were the start of everything. The dreams were why his parents sent him here. And yet now he’s here, nothing has changed.

 

So without a help for it he dreams of eyes that watch and soft whispers that play in his ears, and when he wakes he pretends he has never dreamt it. It makes him unwilling to sleep some days, makes him trace his fingers over the letters on his collarbone until he feels calm enough to sleep.

 

The mark that he has memorized, the person it represents- whoever it is, wherever they are, it becomes something constant, an anchor throughout all of the resentment and anger.

 

But just a few days after _that_ , the first spark of contact arrives after all. It comes in the form of someone with a tad more courage than the others, an invitation from the collective to bring him into the fold. A boy comes up to him, with a deep sea blue complexion and red eyes and Ben blinks, thinks of lessons in the shade and at desks as a child and remembers _Chiss._

 

The boy introduces himself as Xevi'razi'nishok- and his introduction is immediately amended to reassure Ben to call him Irazin. So Ben nods, just a little bewildered by the whole interaction- trying to read the look in the boy’s pupiless eyes- and commits the two names to memory.

 

(he forgets the former within an hour or so, but the latter sticks around for all his life)

 

He opens his mouth to introduce himself- pauses for a moment. It's not really necessary anyway is it, he thinks with a sudden resentment that has, unsurprisingly, nothing to do with the current situation. There's no doubt that everyone training here already knows exactly who he is.

 

"You're always sitting alone," the boy starts, moving on without a pause, and at least it's _something_ that there's nothing in his tone except politeness. There's no embarrassment or pity, which makes Ben like him a sliver of a fraction more. Most people who ask him anything or speak with him always seem embarrassed for Ben for some reason, as if seeing him constantly alone is something to be ashamed of, like his solitude isn't something he's chosen. Like _Ben_ is something embarrassing, strange and not-right and not meant to be there.

 

He blinks though, tunes back into the one-sided conversation just as the Chiss finishes.

 

"-so we were wondering, would you like to sit with us?" The Chiss is smiling. His eyes gleam in the light, red and full and quite warm in how they reflect the light.

 

There is an invitation there of course, to welcome him to the fold, to become _friends_. And if that happened- he’s not exactly optimistic to any stretch of the imagination, then that would _really_ be accepting his situation, he’d have to try harder from now on to get on with everyone.

 

(it feels like that would be a betrayal, somehow)

 

He glances towards where the boy was sitting before- a motley crew around his age- and despite having been chosen for this particular expedition, the Chiss seems to be the youngest amongst his group. There's a Twi'lek and a Cathar there as well, for bonus non-humanness, both steadfastly looking down at their food, pretending not to be concentrated on the exchange between their friend and Ben.

 

Still, from the way they're barely even talking, looking uncomfortable where they sit, it's clear that they are in _some_ form or other eavesdropping.

 

It makes something like a smirk momentarily curve his lips, and there is a response almost but not quite on the tip of his tongue. But he hesitates and shakes his head, catching himself.

 

"It's fine," he mutters, and then, because he doesn't want to sound rude, he adds, belatedly, "Sorry."

 

He's not here to get on with people, after all. The stubbornness in him tells him that, even if he only halfheartedly agrees with the sentiment now.

 

So the boy nods and shrugs and returns to his table- and adds that Ben is welcome any time, and Ben returns to his food, trying not to shift uncomfortably at the gazes he's sure are on him.

 

Time passes, routine forms. He wakes when the sun rises low in the morning, does his stretches and washes his face with cold water. He trains in his forms (first memorized, then built upon, eventually expanded), then goes for food at noon and eats silently, leaves as soon as he's done.

 

(though eventually he caves and finds himself awkwardly joining Irazin's group after all, sitting with them one morning in the autumn, and then as the weeks pass he’s already become a fixture at their table)

 

He studies in his spare time, goes to the library and flips through holorecordings and books- he finds that he likes the old tomes best, the ones that recant their tales of eras long past and tell of Jedi and Sith and the days of the Old Republic.

 

(but he is always more fascinated by the tales of smugglers and troopers, ignores those of the Jedi)

 

And then for four hours in the evening; he farms. Usually that involves planting seeds or digging, using the force to help plants and crops grow where they lag. They're entirely self-sufficient here on this distant and remote planet, everything that they have is made themselves. The clothing, the food, the houses- they're self-sufficient to an adequate enough extreme that sometimes Ben wonders if they're more _farmers_ than Jedi.

 

But when he gets past the resentment- did his parents send him here for _this-_ it’s halfway bearable, he'll admit that.

 

He even stops being ‘the new guy’- he gets saddled with taking care of one of the younger kids, a girl who arrives in the summer on a battered old shuttle. A brown haired, wide-eyed brat who sticks herself to him like glue and follows him everywhere- until eventually he’s forgotten how to be annoyed when shows up clambering onto his lap at lunch to eat all his food.

 

And then she starts putting things in his hair.

 

_("But the flowers look good on you."_

 

_"No they don't."_

 

_"They do, trust me!"_

 

_"I don't."_

 

_"But keep them in anyway Ben. Puhleese?"_

 

_"... Fine.")_

 

At one point someone catches him in the middle of crouching down and dangling his sidekick by the scruff of her neck over a pond. Somewhat against the point, the kid is giggling wildly at all the excitement.

 

But as things start to settle down, they start to change, even if sometimes he feels content with all this. Nothing changes in the daylight, not so anyone can see. But things never change where you see them.

 

In the daylight, everything remains the same, a slow monotony of days bleeding into each other. Training and reading and sparring in a repetitive cycle that spans months, broken up by small excursions, by his friends and his teacher.

 

The daylight, he learns, is kind to him.

 

But in the night, things are not so soft. There is no kindness to be found in the dark.

 

In the night things _change_. The dreams that had plagued him first upon arriving do not recede through the months, they only increase in their frequency, increase in their intensity- he wakes in the night now, just sometimes, gasping for air, clawing at things that do not exist.

 

Nobody senses his unrest.

 

The dreams do not stop. It occurs to him that he cannot help but be drawn into them, bewildered and lost as he is. Sometimes he even thinks he hears a voice, calling him on. It is not a kind voice, never a kind voice, but a voice that draws him in nonetheless, cold and soft and compelling, and _always_ he is struck by the urge to follow. Perhaps it’s morbid want, a need to chase these dreams to their source, a whisper that tells him to _grasp_ after the elusive thought.

  
So in the end, it’s inevitable he does.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in part dedicated to Koibi, who saved this fic.  
> comments wanting answers will be answered.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He likes to think his new bad posture makes him look vaguely more intimidating to the younger kids, who are (all of them it seems) obsessed with climbing him and tugging on his hair. Maybe it might even stop them from trying to braid flowers into his hair.
> 
> Of course, it doesn’t work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I remembered how I was going to do this fic. 4 chapters as a prelude, then the real story. I changed the series name and the title. I’ve written all of the prelude so I’ll just post it and get started on the real story- I’ll rewrite all of this at some point but not now.
> 
> Chapter warnings: gore, character death.

 

 

 

The years pass, in the passing of the seasons many things change.

 

For one, Ben grows.

 

Short hair becomes longer (he ties it back in a ponytail and Shaza asks if she can braid it for him) (he refuses), his limbs grow out of their ungainly youth and slowly into the surety of adulthood.

 

(Shaza braids his hair anyway)

 

The people who had used to fondly and not so fondly call him ‘shortie’ are now people he towers a full head over. It’s a delicious feeling he can’t believe he had to wait years for.

 

It’s slightly regretful that Irazin has gone through much the same change, though on a slightly more unprecedented and more extreme scale. Adolescence had hit that Chiss like a racing pod hit a wall. Ever since approximately 4 months ago Irazin had suddenly looked nothing like a child anymore, or even a _teenager_. If Chiss had to shave, he’d probably be shaving every day.

 

"I was brought up among you, so it’s strange to me as well," the boy- or man- had remarked at one point. He looked the oldest now, he _was_ the oldest both technically and metaphorically, and it was a slight shade of odd because Ben remembered how everyone else had doted somewhat on the Chiss when they were younger. And now that little kid was twenty-something years old by his species’ standards.

 

At least Irazin was mature from the start, and there hadn’t been an abrupt personality change as well.

 

He watches with a first-hand viewpoint, amused to spectate how the friendship between Irazin and Shaza starts shifting into something a little bit _more._ Even though neither the Chiss nor the Twi’lek realize and to the rest of them it might be as clear as day. Ben even makes half serious bets with Thurrus to see which of them will be brave enough to confess first.

 

(a note if you want to enter the betting pool: despite Irazin being so mature-minded, he’s wholly inexperienced when it comes to love- even if it’s obvious from the deep purple blush that stains his cheeks whenever Shaza does something particularly romantically inclined. it’s fascinating how both of them can manage to be oblivious to each other’s feelings.)

 

Without realizing (at least in the beginning), Ben starts to slouch while walking- it’s something he does that makes him look less tall, makes him stand out less. And that means that he doesn’t bang his head on everything that’s too low for his forehead. At one point Shaza tells him he looks like a hulking rancor (he preens at the ‘hulking’ part, then frowns at the ‘rancor’, and then grudgingly joins in when Shaza bursts into laughter at the look on his face).

 

But at least he likes to think his new bad posture makes him look vaguely more intimidating to the younger kids, who are (all of them it seems) obsessed with climbing him and tugging on his hair. Maybe it might even stop them from trying to braid flowers into his hair.

 

Of course, it doesn’t work.

 

“Your hairstyle is much improved,” Irazin remarks one day, when Ben forgets to pull out the daisies woven into his braid.

 

Half a galaxy away, his parents are mostly out of touch. They call maybe once a month- his father much less- and sometimes it feels like his mother and father have never existed in his life (perhaps they no longer care, so he no longer remembers them either).

 

(he knows some part of it is stems from his uncle asking them to leave him alone- but the taste is no less bitter on his tongue)

 

And the dreams- well. When he jolts awake with sweat soaked hair and his heart pounding in his chest, it’s only the habitual ritual of running his fingers over the raised marks on his skin that calms his erratic heart. A part of it is soothing still, something protective he can hold to, even if now he no longer imagines what his soulmate looks like, barely thinks of them as caught up in his life as he is.

 

(a realization he had come to, a long time ago: even if his soulmate is something yet intangible, they’re more real than his parents ever are)

 

But at least his fellow acolytes are good to him. He's someone people seem to like, which is halfway to surprising. People like to come to him for help with their saber forms, and sometimes if they need to find something in the archives but can’t they’ll find him in the hallways. He’s still withdrawn, but at least he can say he’s mellowed out a little bit around the people he calls friends.

 

In the light of day, things change but everything has stayed the same. After all, he's Ben Solo and he always has been.

 

(in the darkness, even that has changed)

 

The thing is, it’s easy to pretend the night does not exist, when there is light shining on everything with its laughter and its brightness and its friendship. He’s Ben Solo, and he’s everything that comes associated with that.

 

But things do not change in the light, where you see them. And Ben doesn’t forget this, not when he is laughing with his friends, not when he is alone, studying pages of notes he took from the archives.

 

Perhaps it’s because within the darkness is the truth of things, and even in daylight there is a shadow tied to his feet. The truth always comes to light, one way or another.

 

So let’s skip past all that, skip past the banality and the mundane and the softness that could never be _real-_ here’s how it ends, how it culminates. It culminates in a way Ben never thought about, but always _knew_ , somewhere deep inside him, always realized would happen.

 

Maybe it’s why when it happens, it’s happens like anything else would, and the world does not stop for it, doesn’t stop for him.

 

The right thing to do has never been the easiest. Ben understands that, _of course he does understands that_ , his hands slick and the blood staining his brown robes red. It taints everything in its ugly shade, and there is so much of it.

 

It’s like a downpour, the floods that come in autumn and leave the ground soggy and wet for weeks afterwards. There is red and it is _everywhere_ and Ben thinks- oddly, a thought that comes from almost nowhere- it is not as beautiful as he thought it would be. Strange that. He had thought briefly, in a vague, poetic sort of sense, that maybe it should be, that crimson was a beautiful colour, it was the colour poets liked to use the most but he realized now, looking down at the ground- it was disgusting.

 

 _The right thing to do has never been the easiest_.

 

It was all strangely easy, his blade cutting through flesh like butter. He can only smell cooking meat, and somehow the nausea is still kept at bay, he’s not quite here in the moment. Cooking _meat_ , charred at the edges. It brings to mind a fire, a bonfire maybe, makes him remember cooking steaks of bantha on a spit.

 

(he wants to laugh, somehow, a hysterical urge bubbling up from somewhere he did not know existed)

 

He realizes his hands are shaking. He stills it, opening and closing his fist. It doesn’t help, not much.

 

(there’s a faint, seizing ache in his chest, and he cannot swallow past the ice in his throat)

 

He’s finally grown up he realizes, and the thought is tinged with bewilderment, with horror.

 

-it’s a voice that makes him blink and refocus, drags him back to the moment. It’s a broken voice, and the numbness fades for a moment as he looks towards the source of it.

 

He knows that voice.

 

His eyes flicker down from the slick hilt of his blade, down to the ground to gaze at the Twi'lek lying there. He doesn’t know what sort of expression he’s making, he doesn’t want to know. He just looks at her, at his friend.

 

He's not afraid to call her friend now. Is not afraid to realize she means far, far more to him than he ever realized. He's embraced that weakness, and in embracing it he has been given the strength to destroy it.

 

(but that’s only what he’ll think afterwards, that’s only what he’ll make up to himself later, in the darkness of a ship alone in space)

 

She’s asking something, barely there, slow and cracked and blood between her teeth. She should be dead, but she isn’t. He had been careless (she had been a fool, didn’t she remember that he had always been the better fighter, the better duelist?).

 

It’s painful death that he had not intended, but which will occur nevertheless now. He remembers kicking her lightsaber away from her just for good measure. It was not like she could even attempt to crawl to reach for it, she would never get that far even if she tried, and it seemed like she knew it too.

 

There is, ostensibly, a question on her bloody lips. The purple is sickening. Her teeth are too white, too clean to be splattered with it. But her voice is anger and heartbreak, it is someone struggling for life, and somehow that makes him breathe easier.

 

He owes the Twi'lek an answer. Kylo Ren might not, but Ben Solo does, and he has to fulfill that, if only to lay the boy at peace.

 

Strange that he cannot look at her in the eye even now.

 

_Weak, but he cannot help it._

 

He opens his mouth, raises his blade as he does. He will give her mercy, mercy and an answer that perhaps she will understand. Perhaps that she will not. But he has no other answer to give.

 

"It is necessary."

 

( **_is_ ** _it necessary? he wonders, and the thought does not let itself grapple higher than the depths of his subconscious_ )

 

He brings the blade down. The hiss of blood burning is unpleasant, the smell of charred meat has grown dull on his senses.

 

Shaza does not look away from him, not even in death.

 

 _It is necessary._ He’s found his answer.

 

(but there is a girl, a girl who once braided flowers into his hair and with a beaming smile said _friend, teacher, loved one_. that too? was _she_ necessary?)

 

It is only when he leaves the planet ( _which planet_ ) and is seven hours into the truth of his new reality that he understands the complete truth of what he must do.

 

He's on a shuttle- the same one that had brought him to that planet in the first place- there are coordinates on his map and blood still staining his robes, a hand fallen limply beside him and an empty spot in his mind raw and red and something is missing and-

 

Ah, he realizes, belatedly, there's something left after all, a last loose end to wrap up before he can finish his transformation to Kylo Ren. The rest can and will come with time, but this should be done now. This last lingering sentiment to be cut away before it could continue to fester.

 

By now he has almost forgotten his soulmark, hidden as always, something he paid little attention to. But when it comes to him, it comes in the cold of space and the age old fear returns to grip his heart.

 

His first thought after the realization is sudden and convinced, patriotic in its call- _I have to, I must, I will_. And then, following immediately after. _I can't_. _It’s impossible_.

 

(but he won’t? or he can’t)

 

Funny, as with all things, anything can be done, so long as one has the right state of mind to do it. He knows that, he has the reminders of them, bloody in his memory.

 

He realizes he can’t leave it without doing this, being rid of the mark that is no longer his. After all, if it does not belong to him any more, then it shouldn't be there- it was something that had belonged to Ben Solo, a person he no longer was, a person he had destroyed only hours ago with his own hands.

 

A thought: it should embolden Kylo, that knowledge, the thought that he was going to finish the task and destroy the last remnants of Ben Solo that still remained inside him.

 

The reality: he does not feel emboldened. He feels somewhat broken inside.

 

(it’s as if, perhaps, the emptiness had come in and taken away all his feeling and replaced it with something dark and painful instead)

 

Strange, perhaps, that _emptiness_ can feel so much like pain.

 

The truth is that he should hate it. He should hate the mark beneath his neck now. All it is is nothing more than mark that ties him down to his fate- a fate and a destiny he has forcefully ripped apart and abandoned by his own decision.

 

Ben Solo was the son of a Skywalker, named after the man who had been a war hero, the Republic’s general. _Ben Solo_ was the Jedi, a boy, the child who only wanted to make his parents proud and find his way in life at the same time.

 

But Kylo Ren is the one who _chose_ to leave behind that fate. Kylo Ren is the one who chose to become someone new, to become someone of his own making- and if he chose to follow others, to take on other burdens and fates, then that was _his_ choice as well. He is nothing that was given to him by his parents, he is nothing that they made.

 

So the mark...

 

But if it is his choice, he reasons, quietly to himself, tentative and slow, tendrils of something that he had locked deep within himself unfurling again, treacherous in their enticement. _Surely it would be fine to keep this_.

 

For a moment, he falters.

 

( _it will make you weak_ )

 

( _it will bring you nothing but pain_ )

 

His foresight has never been as clear as his mother’s but suddenly he sees this as clearly as anything, a truth he cannot avoid. He knows _this_ , bone-deep and certain (he will be made weak by this mark on his collarbone, he will _break_ from it if he gives it the chance).

 

The decision makes itself for him.

 

(he does not realize then, that this won't change anything at all)

 

When he carves the name from his flesh, he locks his jaw. He does not allow a single cry to escape from his treacherous lips.

 

He burns away the carved tattoo with fire and metal, burns until there are tears springing to his eyes from the pain. His teeth remain clenched (when he releases his jaw, he realizes the pain has numbed enough he can’t even feel it anymore).

 

He burns deep enough, far enough in that he stops for a moment- struck with a sudden, terrified thought that jolts him from the dissociation- maybe the person on the other end might feel it too, maybe they’re experiencing the selfsame agony he is-- before he reminds himself not to care, that anyway it is _impossible_.

 

So he goes further. He watches himself in the reflection of the transparent glass, digs the knife in until it reaches bone, until he can see the white below when he drags it away. It doesn’t feel real- not the pain, not the heady, dizzy feeling that makes his hand clutch at the edge of the chair. He cuts the skin from his flesh and the _pain isn’t enough_. He cuts until he can look in the mirror and see nothing left.

 

In the end there is no longer anything of that obsidian black reflected back at him.

 

There’s a mess of blood and broken skin left behind, a ruin remaining in the place of something that was meant to be blessed.

 

Later, he’ll reflect that he could have taken anesthesia beforehand, could have used a less painful method to destroy the mark. But he deserves the pain. He _owes_ the pain, to whomever the mark's owner is.

 

The next day is when he meets his mentor for the first time.

 

 

 


End file.
